Bowser wrote:Phil Mickelson with another gag job with the US Open all but wrapped up.

Phil made the only decision on 18 that brought double bogey into play with his attempt to hit it on the green with is second shot at 18. The best way to describe is through his own words after the round where he called himself an "idiot".

Phil was horrible with his driver today but kept getting lucky with good enough lies to be able to advance the ball into good and sometimes even great positions. The one time he got a horrendous lie it was because he tried to get too much out of a fairway bunker shot and instead of recovering back to the fairway he put himself into a worse position in the rough.

Kudos to Ogilvy, he made a tremendously clutch chip shot on 17 and a great up and down on 18 after getting a horrible break by his ball rolling into a sand filled divot in the 18 fairway.

Goalie - I can't believe Phil was even on the leader board with his fairways hit numbers... just ugly. Even I, the most amateur of amateurs at golf going into 18 would have known to just play it safe with that course and especially that hole.

It was nice to see someone new win it though, I'm all Tiger'd and Phil'd out.

Bowser -- One thing no one is talking, well almost no one, is how lucky Phil was with some of his lies in the rough. He is obviously a great player but when you have the ability to hit the ball 150 yards out of the rough and it takes about four bounces before stopping you had a great lie. He also hit a ball that went into a trash can which enabled him to drop into a great lie. Then on 18 the ball hits the corporate tent and falls into an area where the grass is trampled down and he has another lie which he can play almost any shot from.

He did end up with two bad lies in bunkers and one awful one in the fairway, which he created himself by trying to advance the ball too far out of the fairway bunker on the par five on the front nine.

The end result of this though will be a couple things. The debate about Phil approaching Tiger in terms of career greatness can stop. The gap in majors is 10-3 and that is probably the closest it will ever be again.

Also I hope people appreciate Tiger's ability to close out tournaments a little more. Alot of Phil supporters and Tiger bashers tend to complain that his opponents fall apart and put not pressure on him. As we saw yesterday the golf course provides all the pressure any player needs in a major.

The bad part for Phil in terms of coming back from this is not only did he choke mentally after all his preparation he choked bigtime with his driver all round and especially on 18. The ball he hit on 18 made all his other drives look great by comparison. By my un-official math he missed the center of that fairway by at least 25 to 30 yards. Factor in the fact that ball would have probably carried another 10 or so yards if the tent was not there and without the tent he could have been 50 yards off line.